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Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 4:26 pm
by BRed
Playing around with the damper I found that it doesn't use full stroke of the piston.....
in closing the seat, it moves a little over 14mm (by the seal wear marks on the piston rod) but I can compress it to ~20mm (in a padded vice).

So, our damper has a 20mm stroke and is using about 14-15mm or ~75% of the total lift capacity.


Before we start looking for a replacement lift cylinder, I would like to try an experiment with one of the Forza riders with a bad damper....
if your damper absolutely will not support your seat, you qualify! :)
but this person should be willing to use tools and should have someone available to assist them.

The reason I suggest this is my damper is working great, but it didn't always.
Right after I stripped the body panels off the Forza, my damper wouldn't hold the seat up. But it would before! During that teardown using the service manual, I had started to remove the seat and had loosened all the hinge bolts, but got stopped dead by the lift damper....the manual said to remove the ball from seat hinge with a wrench.....I didn't have a thin wrench and stopped there (another rider mentioned later that the socket could just be popped off the ball but I didn't know that at the time).

Anyway after I reassembled the bike, the seat wouldn't stay up. Having loosened the seat hinge bolts, I knew where to look first.

With the help of a friend, I loosened all the seat hinge bolts, then he lifted up on the rear of the seat and I pushed DOWN on the front of the seat (with the damper still attached) and with it held in this position I retightened all the hinge bolts.

The damper again supported the seat.
So my damper failure was self induced and was cured by applying a little bias to the hinge components (there are 4 parts to this hinge, not the two piece hinge we're accustomed to seeing.)
Hinge A (4) bolts to the frame.
Hinge B (3) is secured to Hinge A by two pivot bolts (27).
Seat hinge (1) is bolted to Hinge B (this is the metal nose of your seat to which the damper attaches).
Hinge cover (5) secures the seat to this whole mess.

any takers? :geek:

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 5:28 pm
by you you
BRed wrote:Playing around with the damper I found that it doesn't use full stroke of the piston.....
in closing the seat, it moves a little over 14mm (by the seal wear marks on the piston rod) but I can compress it to ~20mm (in a padded vice).

So, our damper has a 20mm stroke and is using about 14-15mm or ~75% of the total lift capacity.


Before we start looking for a replacement lift cylinder, I would like to try an experiment with one of the Forza riders with a bad damper....
if your damper absolutely will not support your seat, you qualify! :)
but this person should be willing to use tools and should have someone available to assist them.

The reason I suggest this is my damper is working great, but it didn't always.
Right after I stripped the body panels off the Forza, my damper wouldn't hold the seat up. But it would before! During that teardown using the service manual, I had started to remove the seat and had loosened all the hinge bolts, but got stopped dead by the lift damper....the manual said to remove the ball from seat hinge with a wrench.....I didn't have a thin wrench and stopped there (another rider mentioned later that the socket could just be popped off the ball but I didn't know that at the time).

Anyway after I reassembled the bike, the seat wouldn't stay up. Having loosened the seat hinge bolts, I knew where to look first.

With the help of a friend, I loosened all the seat hinge bolts, then he lifted up on the rear of the seat and I pushed DOWN on the front of the seat (with the damper still attached) and with it held in this position I retightened all the hinge bolts.

The damper again supported the seat.
So my damper failure was self induced and was cured by applying a little bias to the hinge components (there are 4 parts to this hinge, not the two piece hinge we're accustomed to seeing.)
Hinge A (4) bolts to the frame.
Hinge B (3) is secured to Hinge A by two pivot bolts (27).
Seat hinge (1) is bolted to Hinge B (this is the metal nose of your seat to which the damper attaches).
Hinge cover (5) secures the seat to this whole mess.

any takers? :geek:

Not sure. Gn2 is probably more of a giver than a taker I suppose...

...

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 8:14 am
by DioTiAma
Lift-O-Mat Gas Spring Reference No.: 2617NL (145mm fully compressed, 60mm stroke -it can push the seat way up-, 19mm of cylinder thickness & with a force of 600N): 27 euro.

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 3:44 pm
by fish
BRed wrote:Playing around with the damper I found that it doesn't use full stroke of the piston.....
in closing the seat, it moves a little over 14mm (by the seal wear marks on the piston rod) but I can compress it to ~20mm (in a padded vice).

So, our damper has a 20mm stroke and is using about 14-15mm or ~75% of the total lift capacity.


Before we start looking for a replacement lift cylinder, I would like to try an experiment with one of the Forza riders with a bad damper....


any takers? :geek:
Hello BRed, Yep - my seat lifter worked before the dealer replaced the fuel pump - when I got it home it no longer worked.
So, the next time my team is in town, we will go out there and try to adjust the 16 bolts in this 7-part seat hinge-massacre. Meanwhile, now that it is warmer and sunny - I'll just ride the darn thing.
Fish

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 6:19 pm
by Forza 300
Just had mine replaced two days ago under warrantee and went to use the scooter today and seat fell down ! It's about time honda gets this fixed with a updated gas support ,years ago there was a law suit agains gm cars were the trunk had these gas supports and when they got cold the trunk lid would fall and hit people on the head. Gm had to update with larger gas supports.
Don frustrated forza 300 owner

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 7:31 pm
by gn2
Simple answer... don't try to store your head inside your scooter.

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:44 am
by Forza 300
I had mine ( seat opener )replaced 1 week ago and it's failing already in cold weather ,as was thinking they didn't replace it ,but when I took all the parts (luggage compartment )out to find out what was going on with a fuel leak after fuel pump recall replacement I looked at the seat opener and it looked new. Looks like honda did a bad design of the opener ,not enough pressure in cold weather , I guess that's why there coming out with a new unit as what I heard on the forums. Someone wanted to know were it's located , lift your seat up and it's located left front of bottom of seat area,you can only see part of it ,you must remouve the luggage compartment to see all of it.

Don

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:00 am
by Forza 300
Here is a picture of the seat opener once the seat cargo tray is out .

Don

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:56 pm
by speedandstyle
I have been told that the people here - http://www.liftsupportsdepot.com/ - can fit a damper{they call them lift supports}to anything. They might be able to provide a better support that simply swaps with the stock unit. I have not used them myself but several other people I know have and only had good things to say about them.

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 4:41 pm
by Forza 300
Any updates on a new support ( gas pressure cylinder) recall from honda.

Don

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 5:42 pm
by fish
You know what we're NOT doing?
We're not trying the simple fix that BRed mentioned.
The next time it rains me off the streets .... I'm going to do what BRed said.
I do not hate Honda for buiding this thing so that the bottom of the storage area is only suitably convenient to really, really short people with long arms - or people with heads the size of tennis balls - or squirrels. A miner's lamp/hat would be helpful, too, there Honda guys.
We didn't get a shock wrench - so should be some Yen left on the table....
Fish

Re: That seat 'opener damper'

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:29 pm
by robisc
In Italy the open damper is replaced under warranty by Honda Services with a new one that works like a charm.
In my NSS300 it was replaced 2 months ago and until now the seat stays perfectly open.